Not sure whether I've said this before or not ... but I love Stumbleupon. Obviously I love it as an internet marketer (and to all of you Stumbleupon Vigilantes ... I merely submit good content. I don't try to game the system. Just look at my submissions profile before you become judge, jury, and executioner!), but I'm talking here about loving it as an individual. Rather than sit and watch television in the evenings now after the kids goto bed, I find myself at the computer often, stumbling to beat the band. I've heard and seen others with this affliction too; Shana at Social Desire, Dave from Huomah, and our very own Tom Tsinas to name but a few.
Part of the pleasure I take from Stumbleupon is in being the first to find and stumble good content. I feel like a reporter must ... getting their story to market before the masses of other reporters. Its a real adrenaline rush! Accordingly, I'm constantly checking to see how my submissions have performed ... its a whole pride thing. Are they being stumbled by others? Do others like the content? Am I popular oooops did I say that aloud?
That said, here's my holiday gift to all of our faithful readers. In order to build a stronger profile to be a popular 'independant reporter', and a good all-round Stumble contributor, these are the top 7 places I look/things I do to find good unique stories for Stumble ... and the key is to be faster than the 'other independant reporters'
1) Digg - check Digg's upcoming list in categories you're interested in. I find some real gems there. Many diggers are primarily diggers ... stumbleupon is often an afterthought.
2) Google Alerts - set-up Google alerts for keyword topics you are interested in, and have them send directly to your PDA or email address. Make certain you choose 'comprehensive' and 'as it happens' from the drop down menu options, to give yourself the best chance for 'first to stumble' success.
3) RSS Feeds - set-up a good RSS aggregator, and start adding popular news sites in topics relating to your interests. Personally, I subscribe to many science, technology, and space type site feeds. I then check frequently.
4) Google News/Yahoo News - within these sites, search for keywords relating to your interests (eg. "planets"), and subscribe to the specific feed for news relating to that term (eg. http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=planets&fr=ush-news&yhdr_submit_button=).
5) Change Detection Services - for pages that do not offer RSS feeds, sign up for a change notification service. These services will send you an email often highlighting changes made to a page, if they detect that a page has changed. The key here is to monitor only really important pages that are somehow related to your interests. Personally, I track many of Google's pages.
6) Monitor Popular Sites - who's pages already grace StumbleUpon and Digg type sites frequently. It may take a bit of analysis, but its well worth the investment of a couple of hours time. The logic of course is that sites that are frequently popular have an inside edge on information, and therefore will be popular more frequently in the future.
7) Social Media Plugin - this Firefox plugin won't necessarily help you find good content, but it'll quickly identify if content has already been submitted to Stumble or not ... or even to Digg, Reddit, etc. It was created by the good folks at 97thFloor.
As with all reporters, timing is the key. You absolutely have to be first to get the story to Stumble. Accordingly, if regularly submitting great content to Stumble is a passion of yours, it will require a good deal of time and effort. You've got to be available to submit the content as soon as you get notice of it, otherwise other independant reporters will beat you to it. Accordingly, the effectiveness of the tips above will only be as strong as your commitment to take quick action once content opportunities are found.
Hope this helps! Happy stumbling ...
Well Mista Jeff, being a technical search junkie I started using SU as a mere mortal and thought only to have some quality control over what I had to ‘stumble upon’… looking at a potential new contact’s stumbles was nearly mandatory. To this day I only have a mere 30 or so friends, but I am pretty sure to have good quality (for the most part) when I do go a stumbling.
I don’t enjoy the excitement you do from having a scoop, as such highs are temporary and fleeting. I do though enjoy it as I would reading a newspaper or magazine, the element of finding something I may not have otherwise is great.
Dave
Jeff, it seems like this approach to finding content to stumble would be incredibly time consuming. How do you find the time? You are already aware of my struggle with Time Management and Social Media…. if this post is how you find content to stumble how do you find the time? Do you follow any type of structure/schedule between work, play and social media?
Great post and thank you for the mention. 😉
Shana
These are some great tips. I also would stress sending the right message at the right time:
http://www.pinnycohen.com/2007/12/26/marketing-wisdom/how-to-deliver-the-right-message-at-the-right-time/
I haven’t found the key to stumbled upon success as you. I do use stumbled upon but for some reason a while back the different add it programs I was using at different blogs was registering. I like digg better because the “scoop” does seem to happen there first. Google news is also good.
Great post Jeff, like the idea of being a reporter too! To be honest I find news from stumble that I wouldn’t usually find!
Everything about StumbleUpon is great to me. I think it’s funny how though the posts that I submit that I think will go over well don’t do quite as well as the ones that are a joke or fun and that I never expected anything from. There’s one on my site about college and sex and virginity that for 3 days now is running over 2000 visitors a day from Stumbleupon. Who’d have thought? (p18 at the blog)
Try Drudge report too for news that others don’t see. If you go to the sites linked there is usually at least one of two gems that you would love to submit that others have not done so yet.
Good post. The social media Firefox plugin rocks and makes things easy.
I don’t game Stumble – what’s the point? You might get a blip but pretty much no longer term readers.
I prefer to simply Stumble stuff I like, including my own. For example I stumbled a piece I’d pulled together on Sir John Harvey Jones a few days ago. But before that I’d not Stumbled my own blog for months.